Seeking a New Narrative and Finding 20/20 Vision in 2020

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he 2020 U.S. Presidential Election Year finds me ensconced in Tucson, Arizona.  This is definitely not Trump country.  Our man in The U.S. House of Representatives is Raul Grijalva, possibly one of the most influential liberals in D.C.  Tucson’s newly-elected mayor is Regina Romero, a Latina leftie who doesn’t shrink from the task of taking on every conceivable social issue.  And I have begun attending what might just be the most influential church in the U.S.A. when it comes to actually DOING the work of Jesus Christ, and not just chatting about it:  Southside Presbyterian; where the Sanctuary Movement began, and which still actively ruffles the feathers of those who believe that the only good “illegal” immigrant is a dead one.  If you want to make enemies in these parts, just say a few words portraying your current U.S. President as being anything other than the slimy, smug, self-righteous, racist, misogynist, hate-monger which he is.  So now my conundrum is this; how do I convince anyone, amid the shitstorm of anti-Trump hysteria, that the man is just playing his part in a multi-year drama?  He’s simply been assigned the part of a president in this country’s latest quadrennial election/selection/faux-democracy, divide and conquer spectacle…brought to the populace along with “bread” from the Agro-Chemical Industry, and “circus” compliments of virtually every major “news” source, under the omniscient direction of our dear friends at The C.I.A.

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Nobody wants to be played for a fool.  Obama’s act was equally as impressive as Trump’s.  Plenty good enough to leave him in place on the political stage for a four year encore.  His keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention had me writing letters to editors, endorsing him for president in ’08.  And during his inauguration eleven years ago, I wept for joy.  Then within a year, my delusions surfaced like bubbles from a champagne bottle.  By some estimations, my one-time hero dropped more tons of bombs on foreign countries in wars for profit than any of the 43 before him.  He also has deported a record breaking number of “illegals”.  And when he started referring to his fellow-Americans as “exceptional” with disturbing regularity, I finally understood that I’d been played for a fool.  I’d swallowed the charismatic, C.I.A.-directed act of this man who had won the hearts and minds of at least half of all Americans.   

 

Seems to me that it’s fair to say that certain groups of Americans join one of the two major parties for similar reasons.  The two parties have the game tied up, and nobody else is allowed a place on the playing field. Therefore if you want to be heard, you become either Republican or Democrat.  Who becomes Republican?  Rich bastards who want to stay that way and poor bastards who strive only to be rich.  Social issues, other than possibly White Supremacy and the sacred Second Amendment do not apply.  And who becomes Democrat?  Good folks who truly love their fellow humans, care for the environment, whose hearts bleed for social justice issues, and who take the teachings of the Prince of Peace seriously…a few even daring to dream of actual peace on earth. 

 

Lucky for the folks in charge of the U.S.A.’s two acceptable parties, the country is roughly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats…or heartless assholes and bleeding hearts.  And since those powerful elites who run both parties do their private partying together, and answer to even more powerful forces than themselves on Wall Street, they work day and night to maintain the status quo…to control the narrative and direct the ongoing political drama.  And unfortunately for those Democrats who still dream of peace on earth, the candidates which are chosen for them are forbidden to do anything which might threaten the continuation of a national policy of International Piracy…of wars for profit…of traditional wars, hybrid wars, wars which kill with bombs and bullets, wars which kill with sanctions and blockades, wars which kill legitimate national leaders and overthrow governments, wars sold like toothpaste to a gullible American public.  Wars sometimes festively wrapped in red, and as often in blue, but wars which will continue unabated unless the stranglehold is broken.  Wars which, by some estimations equate to 20 million foreign murders by The U.S.A. just since the end of World War II. 

 

Here’s what we have to look forward to in the upcoming election season:  Trump has shown himself to be as adept at pissing off liberals as semi-blackish Obama was at infuriating conservatives.  So I’d guess that the plan is to keep the orange ogre for another four year act.  Like a giant sporting event, Americans of all persuasions are kept off balance by the politicians they despise.  It’ll give the Democrats four more years to fuss, fret, and search desperately for a new president from within their ranks, and to completely forget about peace on earth.  Tulsi Gabbard, the only vocal anti-war presidential candidate in recent history has, of course, been eliminated through the process of being ignored by rabid Rachel at MSNBC, and in collusion, politically assassinated by being often interviewed on FAUX News.  Tulsi, our best hope for opening the way for peace, will likely be out of her job as U.S. Congressperson within the next few years…hijacked and betrayed by her own party…rejected by the established status quo, which is and has always been powered by hate, death, and war.  In the quadrennial election/selection/faux-democracy, divide and conquer spectacle, there are eight words which must never be spoken…those are the seven words George Carlin said that must never be uttered on television plus that horrible four-letter utterance which has the potential to upend everything which our two-headed dragon of a political system has accomplished.  That word is “peace”.  No corrective emails please.  I can count the letters in peace. 

 

Peace on earth will not likely come from the assholes on the red side of the aisle.  So to the good folks who gather under the blue banner to fight for justice, battle racism, end misogyny, stop border wall construction, reverse climate change, and save the whales, I have a few words:  All of your good intentions are for naught, until you realize that the choice between war and peace is the only social issue of any real importance in these United States and worldwide.  How can we, with straight faces, speak of overcoming racism on home turf, when we’re dropping bombs on innocent people of all colors living in an undisclosed number of mostly vulnerable, resource-rich, third world countries?  Obama managed to juggle at least seven undeclared wars at once.  How can we meaningfully address climate change while our politicians on both sides of the aisle defoliate half of Asia, drop depleted uranium all over the Mideast, and turn the spoils of war (including the last remaining stands of rainforest) over to their Wall Street overlords for harvesting?  What good is equal pay for U.S. women, when their newfound wealth pays for, and is responsible for the bombs which routinely scatter the body parts of their sisters in foreign lands among the burned branches of their once productive olive orchards? 

 

I’m inviting all loyal Democrats and other folks with good intentions to join me here in in the thankless periphery of The U.S. Empire, and to see your government for the ugly cancer upon earth which it has become.  Our beloved Founding Fathers were International Pirates, and they’ve passed down that baton to their scions for much too long.  The Great American Holocaust, which decimated the advanced culture once occupying the entire Western Hemisphere, dwarfed Hitler’s puny version.  The abomination of slavery fueled the “success” of capitalism.  Those International Pirates own and control the sham democracy of the exceptional people, and do so from positions of power on both sides of the political aisle.  This is an invitation to take part in the long overdue slaying of our favorite sacred cow…the election process…which has always been controlled, but which can now be done with the click of a mouse.  Let’s call it what it is:  A cruel joke…a tale told by an idiot…a fake choice between a sharp stick in the eye or a kick in the groin.  American Democracy, my ass!  It is time for a coup d’etat in this country, and the likely place to kick it off is from within the Democratic Party.

 

‘Tis high time to take control…to admit that we’ve all been played for fools, and to yell from the rooftops that we’re no longer going to take it…no longer will we vote for what appears to be the slightly less toxic of two groomed and approved candidates.  It’s time to demand…to DEMAND positive change from the Democrats, and to accept nothing less.  Perhaps there’s still time to resurrect Tulsi Gabbard’s bold bid for office…to realize that she’s one of the ones we’ve been waiting for…apparently the real deal…a breath of fresh political air.  Time to storm the offices of the Democratic elites and break out the tar and feathers (figuratively of course).  Time to ditch those deceptive rose-colored glasses and find once again the 20/20 vision with which we were born.  Ed Abbey said that “Society is like a stew.  If you don’t stir it up once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.”  I just hope we can still force a spoon into the mountain of scum accumulated in our hallowed halls of government.  It will indeed take all the strength and resolve we can muster.  What say we find out just how exceptional we really are?

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